A Novel Method for Process Planning for Die and Mould Manufacturing Using Expert System Approach

Mould design and development are experience-oriented operations involving complex process planning integration and relatively time-consuming processes. A solution for integrating the process planning with manufacturing operations for mould design and development is presented. In this paper, the developed solution is related to cost and time. The main aim of the study is to optimize the whole process planning scenario and make it feasible and accessible for faster and optimum design to manufacture die and moulds for injection moulding applications. The developed method consists of group technology (GT) coding for part and tool linked to the manufacturing process and its criticalities. An impact factor rating system is established using the weighted average method to associate the manufacturing operations with time and cost combined with the matrix reduction method so as to produce an optimized sequence of operations. The effect of restricting certain criticalities (electric discharge machine usage, quality and complexity) on the GT code is also elaborated in reference to quality and other parameters. The resultant study presents a novel method of establishing an expert system (ES) that combines GT coding, manufacturing operations, weighted average and matrix reduction to optimize the process planning. The rationale behind the research is an effective use of the ES in optimizing process planning applications in digital manufacturing.